Street Fashion exhibit sparks creative designs, highlighted on video
CTE students put their original inspirations on display for a day
What took the project to another level was a partnership with their peers in TV/Video Production, who helped them produce a video component aimed at marketing their designs.
“They were in the mood for everyday clothing,” teacher Carmen Galiano said of her students’ selection of street fashion for their culminating projects. “Where do you go for street clothes? You don’t see it so much in the suburbs.”
With that, the class took a field trip to New York City, visiting two destinations for inspiration: RiseNY’s virtual tour of Big Apple history and the Fashion Institute of Technology’s “Fresh, Fly and Fabulous” exhibit on “50 Years of Hip Hop Style.”
After seeing her students succeed throughout this past school year, she was confident they could pull off this one-day event. They were tasked with designing, sewing and assembling their displays, which had to be put in place for a one-day exhibit before being broken down and removed - not unlike a real-world scenario in the fashion world.
“If you see the work that they did and you see the clothing, you’ll see that it works,” Ms. Galiano said.
Indeed, the video display vividly embellished the static displays, which featured mannequins dressed in student designs alongside their personal statements and descriptions and photographic imagery.
Each of her students was paired with a first-year TV/Video Production student to produce a green-screen-based, 10-second video clip to promote their fashion designs. Merchandising is right there in the course title, and it’s a key emphasis of the curriculum.
Such collaborations among teachers are common on the Valhalla Careers campus. This one brewed for months before quickly coming to fruition in recent weeks. A little extra collaboration took place when Cosmetology students came by to do hair and makeup for those appearing on camera.
Video is a great way to market most fashion whereas models are effective mainly for high-end products, Ms. Galiano explained.
Street fashion isn’t one single thing or set of influences, Ms. Galiano said. It’s more diverse. Fashion historically was set from the highest levels of society and flowed down, she explained. Street fashion came along and bubbled upward. It had its detractors early on, but it has stood the test of time.
“I was going for a current look,” said Mila Hossain, a junior from White Plains, “because with street fashion you can be comfortable and look great.”
Students from other programs were invited to tour the fashion show and vote on their favorite fashions, video and merchandising as well as the items they would most like to wear.
